Alicia Keys

Alicia Keys Gallery

Alicia Keys is an American R&B musician and film actress who has sold over 25 million albums worldwide as of 2007, and has won numerous awards, including eleven Grammy Awards, eleven Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, and fourteen NAACP Image Awards.

Keys was born in the Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem, in New York City, New York, to Teresa "Terri" Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and Craig Cook, a flight attendant. Keys' mother is of Irish, Scottish, and Italian descent and her father is Jamaican.Keys describes herself as confortable with her biracial heritage : "I grew up in New York, and thank God, I never had to go through that in regards to, 'You're not black enough, you're not white enough,' the whole kind of white/black-mixture thing. I never had to go through that. I went through prejudices and all, surely. But I never had to battle with those two parts of me.

Keys' parents separated during her early childhood, and she was subsequently raised by her mother during her formative years in Hell's Kitchen, also in Manhattan.In 1985, Keys and a group of other girls played the parts of Rudy Huxtable's sleepover guests in an episode of The Cosby Show called "Slumber Party".She began playing the piano when she was seven, learning classical music by composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, and her favorite, Chopin.Keys almost chose Wilde as her stage name at age sixteen until her manager suggested the name Keys after a dream he had. Keys felt that name represented her both as a performer and person.

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